Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part three: 2013-2014

nanoboy said:
Fantastic post. Sounds like South Korea is the starters to the main courses of China and Vietnam. ;)
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I fly tomorrow to the next country (well, the morning after tomorrow really but I have to be at the airport at the end of tomorrow for the flight because it is so early).

It's not China and it's not Vietnam (both of those would be easiest approached from New Zealand via Kuala Lumpur).

It shouldn't be too hard to guess because there's probably only two countries for which South Korea would be the most likely through-point to get there.
 
Well I imagine you're heading to North Korea then! :D

There were two things I found surprising about your South Korea visit, which I think you did too - the heat and the friendliness (or lack thereof).

I always imagined Korea to be very temperate, and certainly not swelteringly hot. I would feel very awkward if no-one sat by me on the train (they normally don't anyway, unless its very busy), and it would certainly put me off visiting again. I guess Korea isn't really a tourist destination, so they probably don't see many tourists.
 
zooboy28 said:
Well I imagine you're heading to North Korea then! :D

There were two things I found surprising about your South Korea visit, which I think you did too - the heat and the friendliness (or lack thereof).

I always imagined Korea to be very temperate, and certainly not swelteringly hot. I would feel very awkward if no-one sat by me on the train (they normally don't anyway, unless its very busy), and it would certainly put me off visiting again. I guess Korea isn't really a tourist destination, so they probably don't see many tourists.
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North Korea isn't actually difficult to get into, it just takes a bit of paperwork and you have to be accompanied by official guides the entire time (basically, even if you're travelling as a single person you have to be on a "tour" [of one person]). However the entry point is from Beijing not South Korea.

I certainly didn't think the temperature would be as hot as it is (or at least not until I discovered that through reading a few weeks before going). Spring would be best temperature-wise; apparently winter is best bird-wise because of all the migrants. And it might just have been something to do with me, but the attitude there is definitely different to that in southeast Asia which I am used to.
 
I guess Japan, Mongolia or the Russian far east will be next.

Random question but do you look like you might be in the military? People might have had you down as an American serviceman. I've been to Korea and didn't experience anything like that, people were very friendly to me, often in a very forthright way.
 
Shirokuma said:
I guess Japan, Mongolia or the Russian far east will be next.

Random question but do you look like you might be in the military? People might have had you down as an American serviceman. I've been to Korea and didn't experience anything like that, people were very friendly to me, often in a very forthright way.
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Also, was he using deodorant regularly? He did say he sweated a lot. :confused:

I guess he is off to Japan next. Or Kamchatka.
 
Shirokuma said:
I guess Japan, Mongolia or the Russian far east will be next.

Random question but do you look like you might be in the military? People might have had you down as an American serviceman. I've been to Korea and didn't experience anything like that, people were very friendly to me, often in a very forthright way.
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well funny thing, I certainly don't think I look like a military person (lots of ear-rings and hair to my waist for two things -- although the hair is in a plait when I travel so not everybody notices it because I wear a cap) but it is a common question I get asked in southeast Asia as to if I'm in the army. I think it is because I don't dress like a tourist (usually boots, cargo pants, shirt, and cap or bush-hat) and I'm more solid than your average tourist. Koreans are supposed to be friendly, so that may be it. I did get asked if I was American yesterday.

Oh, and my day bag is an ex-Belgian army canvas shoulder bag.......
 
Japan seems most likely to me, unless Taiwan is an option from Korea? I think there's good wildlife (and a zoo) there.
 
Chlidonias said:
North Korea isn't actually difficult to get into, it just takes a bit of paperwork and you have to be accompanied by official guides the entire time (basically, even if you're travelling as a single person you have to be on a "tour" [of one person]). However the entry point is from Beijing not South Korea.
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The demilitarized zone between North and South Korea has become a de facto wildlife reserve: War or Peace May Doom Korean DMZ Wildlife : Discovery News

Apparently it is very dangerous to do research there though because the you are subject to being shot by the soldiers on either side of the zone.
 
My guess is that Mystery Country #2 is Japan since it is home to several nice endemic species, some of which are quite rare, and it's also home to the Japanese Raccoon Dog. My guess is that one of the mystery species is the Iriomote Cat, and that's possibly the species that you doubt you'll see.

~Thylo:cool:
 
And now I'm in Russia.

I'd managed to rip half the sole off one of my boots while at Juwangsan National Park in South Korea and so when I got back to Seoul I had gone to the shoe market to find some new ones. Understandably the range in my size was somewhat limited, so now I'm wearing a pair of shiny new $60 Korean shoes with bright green laces as if a couple of baby pit vipers are attacking my feet. It'll be interesting to see how long they last, and indeed how well I can hike in them. I liked my old boots, they were well broken in and looked right. These ones make me look like I mugged some kid from a Korean boy band and stole his shoes.

Anyone familiar with the NZ and Australian Border Control programmes on tv will have seen the regular occurrence of Asians coming into those countries with suitcases packed solid with food. Not a single item of clothing, just food. While I was sitting at the Seoul airport, all around me were Koreans packing suitcases solid with food items. Really weird.

The Russian visa is a fun one. It took me six weeks just to get all the documents I needed before application. It is also one of those countries which has different visa application rules for different countries. New Zealanders have to supply a full itinerary with all accommodation, domestic travel, etc pre-booked so you can't waver from the schedule, and the application can only be done from within New Zealand. That's why I was in South Korea at such a crappy time of year because I had to do Russia (and the next two countries) at the start of the trip because I can't get the visas for any of the three while on the road. The Russian visa has an extra-special point where the visa is dated specifically for your trip as written in your itinerary (i.e. in my case from 13 to 31 August) rather than for a general 30 days as is the case with most visas.

I had of course done loads of prep work for the Russian part of this trip. I watched Red Heat like a dozen times, Red Scorpion, Hunt For Red October...pretty much any movie with “Red” in the title. I even watched Red Sonja, not that it helped much. Red Heat taught me how to hold hot rocks in my hand, but I haven’t been into a Russian sauna yet so I haven't had occasion to try that one out yet.

I hadn't managed to get round to changing my left-over Korean won into Russian rubles at the Seoul airport but I figured not a problem, I already had rubles that I'd changed in NZ before leaving, so I'd just change the won at the Vladivostok airport when I got there. It turns out they don't have money changing facilities at Vladivostok airport. A bit silly of me to have expected they would I guess. The lady at the information counter didn't speak much in the way of English but I found out the first bus into town wasn't until 8.15am. It was currently 5am. The other option was a taxi for 1500 rubles (roughly 25 rubles to one NZ dollar). Now taking taxis from airports generally goes against everything I stand for, but I couldn't really be bothered waiting for three hours for the bus and then have the driver refuse me the ride because I only had 1000 rubles notes, so I bit the bullet and got the taxi.

I'm staying at the See You Hostel, apparently the only backpackers in Vladivostok. It is a dump, like some sort of flop-house, and the dorm beds are more expensive than dorm beds are in New Zealand. There is only one toilet and bathroom; not one per dorm room, one for the entire backpckers. The hostel is one apartment section of a row of tenements that look like it was built in the 50s and then abandoned. But all of Vladivostok is like that really. Before I decided to start off my trip in eastern Russia I had always imagined Vladivostok as being a grey miserable city, probably with hungry wolves roaming the streets. And that's just what it is, although I haven't seen any wolves yet.

Pre-trip attempts to find any information about looking for animals around Vladivostok did not yield good results! Lonely Planet was of no use, as usual. Googling really only gave me stuff that "regular" tourists want to know, or reports from wildlife cruise companies (you know, the ones where a two week trip cost what I would spend in a year on land). So I decided to do what I usually do, and just wing it. I'm not sure that's going to work though. I've just spent all day wandering the streets trying to sort stuff out and all I managed to accomplish was getting the hard-copy of my electronic train ticket for later in the week (it only took five minutes.....after an hour and a half standing in a queue). None of the money changers have any interest in changing my Korean won so I'm stuck with it until I get to a country where they will. There doesn't appear to be a tourist information centre in town and I haven't really found anyone who speaks English who is of any help. There are some islands out in the bay which are supposed to provide homes for alcids and largha seals (although I suspect not in summer!) but the place where Lonely Planet said the ticket office for the boats was situated is now the construction site for a big new hotel.

Stay tuned for some miserable updates.
 
Wow, sorry to hear about that.:( Hopefully you'll get to see at least some neat species that you want to see. The Black-Faced Spoonbill was your target species in South Korea, so what's your target species in Russia? Is it a certain spotted or striped Panthera species perhaps?

~Thylo:cool:
 
I guess you will be doing Mongolia and Japan next. ;)

There's clearly Internet in Vladivostok! What's the weather like?
 
ThylacineAlive said:
Wow, sorry to hear about that.:( Hopefully you'll get to see at least some neat species that you want to see. The Black-Faced Spoonbill was your target species in South Korea, so what's your target species in Russia? Is it a certain spotted or striped Panthera species perhaps?
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ha, not at all. My main animal for Russia is further west (probably not hard to guess what it is....someone even mentioned it several pages earlier out of the blue). Literally almost zero chance of seeing an Amur leopard or Siberian tiger so not even going to try. Also I don't understand the Russian regulations around their national park system, so seeing an Amur leopard would probably be easier than actually getting into a park in the first place!

Vladivostok looks like a bust but I'm here for five days so I'll see what happens. At the least there's an Aquarium in town. I do expect to see some good animals once I head westwards though.
 
nanoboy said:
I guess you will be doing Mongolia and Japan next. ;)

There's clearly Internet in Vladivostok! What's the weather like?
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There is indeed internet in Vladivostok, free wifi in fact at the hostel, and a good speed too.

The weather is humid but nowhere near as hot as South Korea. Today was around 24 or 28 I think (I saw it registered on a sign but I forget which number it was) but it was actually really nice because it was very breezy which removed the mugginess from the air.

I think I may have found where the town information centre is (by googling) so I'll go there tomorrow and hope there's an English-speaker there to help me out, although I'm not counting on it. Maybe this bit of the trip will just end up being five days of doing nothing much.
 
Chlidonias said:
Vladivostok looks like a bust but I'm here for five days so I'll see what happens. At the least there's an Aquarium in town. I do expect to see some good animals once I head westwards though.
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I hope that you can start seeing some animals. Can you just tell the wildlife authorities that you are Putin's long lost New Zealand cousin? They will probably drive you to the tigers in a limo.

If that doesn't work you could tell them that you are a member of a Korean boy band on a world tour and you really need to see a wild tiger before you leave.
 
Sounds like you are having a right old time!

Do you go to clubs and bars on your trips? Meet many ladies? Do you get lonely? Do you hang out with other back packers you meet along the way?

I have never been on a trip by myself really, except a short trip I took to Germany to see a World Cup soccer match.
 
And for wolves and bears in the street you are in the wrong season (again). In winter you would have actually a chance. And in Russia things can be very difficult or very easy depending on who you know. And I guess you're trying Saiga only in Mongolia so my bet is you try Baikal seal. Although it might be challenging I would anyway try to visit Sikhote-Alin Reserve.
 
How far west are you heading whilst in Russia? Any chance of making it to Moscow and giving us a report on what appears to be a fantastic zoo? :p
 
Chlidonias said:
ha, not at all. My main animal for Russia is further west (probably not hard to guess what it is....someone even mentioned it several pages earlier out of the blue). Literally almost zero chance of seeing an Amur leopard or Siberian tiger so not even going to try. Also I don't understand the Russian regulations around their national park system, so seeing an Amur leopard would probably be easier than actually getting into a park in the first place!
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No chance of getting to a zoo and seeing those species? And if you do get to Moscow, will you be visiting that breeding center place also (don't they have Saiga?)?

~Thylo:cool:
 
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